The House of Hades
by deathnoteuser07
Summary: After Percy and Annabeth gets dragged to Tartarus, the rest of the 7 (along with Nico) must close the Doors of Death AND stop the Greek and Roman camps from killing each other. Can they do it, or will Gaea and her minions stop them?
1. Chapter 1: Saving Camp

**(Author's Note: So after reading Mark of Athena, I decided to write my own version of what should happen afterwards, because I couldn't wait another year for House of Hades. My version is of course, not canon, unless I made some correct guesses. Enjoy the story.)**

Annabeth had no idea long it had been since she and Percy fell into the darkness, but it felt like forever. She was still holding hands with Percy, and her grip tightened.

"Hey, wise girl" Percy started. "Don't you remember what you said one time at camp during mythology lessons? You told me that it takes-

"Nine days for someone to fall from Earth to Tartarus," Annabeth finished for him. It was rare for Percy to remember these things, since he was usually book dumb. He only remembered the basic, most important things about Greek mythology, and it made her more nervous. It reminded her of the bad situation they were in.

"Percy, I'm scared" she confessed. "I mean, we're falling to Tartarus, the place where the worst monsters are, all of our enemies will be there, and when they see us alone and unprotected, who knows what they'd do!"

_Oh, you SHOULD be scared, _a cold, sinister voice said. _I've been killed by heroes like you for too long! Back when I was alive, all I did was get killed by demigods, but guess what? You're in my territory now! You can't do anything to me, but I can definitely kill you! _

Percy ignored the voice, and he wrapped his arms around Annabeth. "I'm scared too. Nico told me that Tartarus could break a demigod; make them go insane if you will, and there's all these monsters down there that want to kill us, not to mention Gaea…."

"I know what you mean," Annabeth said. "The worst monsters will be there, and because we killed them, they'll all want revenge!"

_You're right about that, _An ancient voice said, and it made Annabeth's blood run cold. _I nearly succeeded in my plan to take down Olympus, but you two just had to interfere. You sent me here, and now I want revenge for what you did, I'm going to torture you in the worst way possible, for ruining my plan! _

_Kill them! _another voice said.

_Yes, kill them! Kill them! _chanted more voices. _These heroes must die! _

_Silence, everyone_ said another voice, and Percy and Annabeth instantly knew that this was Gaea talking. _You can torture them all you want; rip off their fingernails, whip them, stab them, I don't care, but you can't kill them. I need their blood for the sacrifice to being me back, and after that, I'll revive all of you. We'll kill every hero on the planet and destroy Olympus! _

"Don't worry, Annabeth" Percy said, determinedly. "We'll close the Doors of Death. We won't let Gaea rise. I…I won't let anything happen to you!...I'll protect you! Nico was here alone, he had no one, that's why he was so broken when we found him, but that won't happen to us! I have you, Annabeth, and as long as we're together, we'll get through anything."

Annabeth wanted to believe that, she wished that what Percy said was all true, but the situation was just so terrible. She didn't want to hope, because she didn't want those hopes to be crushed.

She could feel tears streaming down her face. "Well….in case we don't make it out of here alive…I love you, Percy."

Percy held her even tighter. "I love you too, Annabeth…."

* * *

It was just a normal day at Camp Half-Blood. The weather was warm, and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. The demigod campers were doing whatever they wanted. The Ares cabin was training (as usual) in the arena, the satyrs and the Demeter cabin were in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow, the Hephaestus cabin was at the forge (Tyson was also there), the Aphrodite cabin was just lying around, gossiping about who liked who, Ella was preening her feathers, Mrs. O' Leary was taking a nap, and Chiron was just at the porch of the Big House, drinking a can of Sprite.

All of a sudden, there was a cry of "ROMANS, ATTACK!" and a bunch of guys in golden armour ran into the camp. They stabbed and beheaded every camper they came across. Some of them (the children of Apollo) had flaming arrows and they fired them at the campers.

The Greek campers were very shocked. One moment, they were enjoying a nice day at camp, the next minute, a bunch of crazy guys in armour were attacking them. The Ares cabin was the quickest to react. Clarisse and her siblings grabbed their weapons, and they rushed at the Romans.

"KILL EVERYONE!" yelled Octavian. "KILL THE GREEKS!"

"DEFEND THE CAMP!" shouted Clarisse.

The campers sprang into action, while the Ares cabin tried to hold them off. Chiron quickly sent an Iris message for an explanation, he then grabbed his crossbow, and he ran to the Romans.

The Apollo children ran to their cabins, they grabbed a bow, and a quiver of arrows. The Hephaestus cabin grabbed their weapons, and they tried to attack the Romans, the Hermes cabin ran into the armoury, and they got their weapons ready, the rest of the cabins did the same, even Drew and the Aphrodite cabin ran into the armoury, and grabbed a weapon. The Greek campers fought back against the Romans, but they were outnumbered.

The Romans were taking out the Greeks. Octavian was fighting two campers at the same time, he beheaded one (before they could hit him), and then he turned around, and he stabbed the other one in the heart. Reyna was fighting some people from the Athena cabin, they were fighting like crazy. They slashed at her, threw knives at her, and they tried to stab her.

"KILL THE ROMANS!" they screamed. "KILL THEM FOR ATHENA! ROMANS ARE EVIL!"

"SHUT UP!" yelled Reyna, as she swung her dagger at somebody's neck. "YOU GREEKS ARE THE BAD GUYS! YOU BETRAYED US ALL! YOU'RE WORKING WITH GAEA!"

Reyna's dogs (Aurum and Argentum) attacked and bit the Greeks that were the closest to them, causing the Greek campers to run, and while they were distracted with that, some of them were hit by flaming arrows. The children of Hecate tried to shoot spells at the Romans, but the children of Trivia countered them with their own magic. The giant eagles picked up some Greek campers with their talons, they flew into the air, and dropped them when they were about fifty feet high.

More campers fell, but the Greeks refused to give up, in fact they fought harder than ever (especially the Nike, Athena, and Ares cabins), they wouldn't give up, every one of them would fight until they died, none of them would surrender to the Romans.

Reyna remembered what Annabeth had told her: _don't underestimate Camp Half-Blood_.

_But in the end, their determination will be all for nothing, when we kill them! _she thought, and then she thrusted her weapon intro somebody's chest.

Chiron was firing crossbow bolts at the Romans, but it was useless. The Romans kept coming, and one demigod ran forward, and he stabbed Chiron in the leg, making the centaur cry out in pain. A few yards away, Tyson the Cyclops was being attacked by four children of Mars, he had slash marks all over his body, and he was trying to defend himself (he didn't want to fight because he considered the Romans to be friends he met when he came to New Rome and defended the city against the giants, the sight of his Roman friends attacking his home and Greek friends made him cry a bit), and while Tyson was being attacked, Ella the harpy was flying through the air, trying to dodge the flaming arrows.

"GET THAT HARPY!" shouted Octavian. "DON'T KILL HER, BRING HER TO ME! SHE CAN RECITE PROPHECYS! I NEED THE PROPHECIES!"

"GO! SAVE YOURSELF, ELLA!" Tyson yelled. "FLY AWAY, DON'T LET HIM CAPTURE YOU!"

Ella flew through the air, and the fighting continued. More Greek demigods died, but the ones who were alive, still fought determinedly, even as the Romans overwhelmed them.

* * *

"NOOOOOO!" screamed Jason, and he opened his eyes. He sat up, and he could feel the sweat running down his face. That was the worst dream he ever had, and he knew that it was all real, Camp Half-Blood was being attacked.

He glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand beside his bed. _Oh man, 3:29 at night…it's been hours since….since we got the statue and lost Percy and Annabeth…_

The door to his room opened, and Piper, Leo, Frank, Hazel, Nico and Coach Hedge ran in. Apparently, his scream was so loud, it woke everyone.

"Jason, what's wrong?" asked Piper.

"Romans….they're attacking camp," he answered. He then told everyone what he saw in his dream.

"Oh my gods, that's _not _good!" said Hazel. "If Octavian gets Ella….then….then…we're screwed! And the legion…those guys are super-strong! They'll obliterate Camp Half-Blood!"

"Stupid Romans," muttered Leo. "Attacking us for no good reason…"

"Hey, I'm Roman!" said Frank, sounding offended. "And they're attacking the Greek camp because an Eidolon possessed you and-

"It doesn't matter," interrupted Leo. "Unless the statue is returned, the Greeks and Romans will continue to fight, until the other side dies, and you know we can't have that happening."

Jason understood. He knew just how Tyson felt. Even though he didn't stay at the Greek camp for a long time, he felt a bond with the other campers (especially Piper), he couldn't just let those guys die, but on the other hand, he was still really close to Reyna and the Roman campers, and he couldn't work against them either; he was stuck in a really tight spot.

"You're right, Leo. Those camps are the only safe places for demigods, they're irreplaceable. If one or the other is destroyed…then they're gone forever. And if that happens, then Gaea wins."

"And Percy and Annabeth's sacrifice would've been for nothing," said Leo. "We'll have to return the statue, but at the same time, we need to get to Epirus to close the Doors of Death."

"We'll have to split up then," said Piper. "Me and Hazel will return the statue, and then we'll catch up with you."

"But…but the prophecy! It said that seven half-bloods have to work together!" protested Leo. "And…and how are you going to carry that statue? It's heavy!"

"The split-up is just temporary," said Jason. "The said that seven demigods will work together to close the Doors of Death, but it didn't say anything about splitting up halfway. We _will_ work together, right after the statue is returned."

"And as for the statue I know how we'll carry it," said Hazel. "But we'll need a chariot for the statue."

Leo went to the storage (where they kept weapons and Greek fire), and he returned later with a chariot. All six demigods (and Coach Hedge) worked together to get the statue into the chariot.

"All right, drops us off here," Hazel said. The ship landed, and Hazel called Arion. A second later, the horse appeared. They made him pull the chariot (with Hazel riding him, and Piper sitting in the chariot, which had very little room), and they went off.

"You guys better get back to us ASAP!" yelled Leo. "Don't you dare die along the way!"

"We'll be fine! And we'll be back before you know it!" replied Hazel, as they disappeared into the night.

**So….how was that? please review :) **


	2. Chapter 2: The Birds

**(Author's Note: Ok, so after a long while, Chapter 2 is finally here! I'm really sorry about the long wait; I guess you could say this story **_**was**_** in 'development hell.' I had to finish **_**Vampire Assassin, **_**and then real life got in the way. I had to prepare myself for exams, which meant I was forced to put fanfiction on hold. Things look better now; **_**House of Hades**_** is no longer in 'development hell,' and it will definitely be updated regularly.) **

The Argo II flew through the clouds. Leo had placed it on autopilot, while he studied Archimedes' scrolls in his room. They were interesting, but at the same time, they were hard to understand. Leo was determined to make it all work out. Percy and Annabeth fell into Tartarus because he opened the fortune cookie, and now he was going to fix it. Nothing would stop him (and the others) from reaching Epirus, and completing the quest to stop Gaea. So far, it was going okay. It had been a day since Hazel and Piper left, and they were going in the right direction, with a lot of time left to stop Gaea, and there hadn't been any monster attacks so far. Leo hoped this would last, but he had his doubts.

There was a knock on the door, and before Leo could respond, the door opened, and Jason walked in.

"Hey…what's up?" Leo said, not really looking up from the scrolls.

"Just trying to figure out what's waiting for us at Epirus," answered Jason. "Gaea will have her strongest monsters coming after us, and I don't want to be surprised. Got any ideas about what we'll be facing?"

"What did the others say?" Leo asked.

"I already talked to Frank, Nico, and Coach Hedge," Jason said. "They think they we'll definitely be seeing giants, maybe some dragons, and….and…."

Jason's voice trailed off. He had another idea of what might be coming after him. It was just a theory, really. He had seen it in a dream, where he was in some underground place. In that dream, he was facing someone…or something with yellow eyes, and a really long tongue, which was coiled around his neck, squeezing tighter and tighter, until his entire vision became blurry. Jason could hear loads of hissing in the background, and then an ancient voice calling out to him.

"Come here and meet your doom, Jason Grace. Don't try to escape your fate. You will die here…"

Jason woke up in a cold sweat after that. He knew that the dream had something to do with this quest. Dreams like that didn't just come to demigods for no reason.

"Hey….Leo," he began. "Have you had any…oh…I don't know…weird dreams lately?"

"Well…now that you mention it-

Before Leo could finish, some of the lights in the rooms flashed red, the alarm sounded, and both of them could hear Coach Hedge shouting.

Leo gritted his teeth. "Crap! We're being attacked!"

He and Jason ran to the deck of the airship, and they could see that they were being attacked by an army of Stymphalian birds. Some of them were shooting their feathers (like arrows) at them, and others were flying down, trying to peck our heroes to death.

Nico took out his black Stygian iron sword. "Looks like we gotta fight them!"

He ran to one of the birds, and slashed its head off. The birds next to the one he killed started to attack him, but Nico was quick. He managed to slash them in half before they could cause major injuries.

Frank took out his bow, and he started to shoot arrows at the birds. The birds that got hit fell to the deck of the ship, and disintegrated.

"Oh man, there's only one thing we can do at a time like this!" Leo said.

"Right!" agreed Jason. "We got to kill 'em all!"

"YEAH! WE'LL KILL THEM ALL!" yelled Coach Hedge. He started hitting the birds that came too close to him with his bat, and he managed to knock them out.

Fire appeared on both of Leo's hands, allowing him to burn the birds that got too close to him, and Jason used his powers to blast the air (in front of him) forward, keeping the birds back.

A few birds flew down, and they tried to peck Nico on the head with their celestial bronze beaks, but Nico slashed them all in half, at the same time (because the birds were next to each other in a line). A group of birds started to surround Jason, but being the son of Jupiter, he was able to control the air around him, and he used the air to blast them all away from him.

Leo saw what he had done, and he ran over to the birds that were knocked back. The birds that were attacking him chased after, and when they got really close to him, Leo used his fire powers to burn them, but since the birds that Jason knocked back were really close, they got burned too.

The birds fell to the floor, and Jason used another one of his air blasts to blow out the fire, so the ship wouldn't burn down.

The birds that were in the air fired their arrow feathers at our heroes. Jason, Leo, Frank, Nico and Coach Hedge were busy fighting the birds that were trying to peck them, so dodging them was almost impossible, but none of them was going to let the birds kill them.

Leo's entire body (except for his feet) was now engulfed with flames, he burned the birds that were pecking him, and he caught some of the arrow feathers. They started burning the moment they landed in his hand, and without a moment of hesitation, Leo jumped into the air, and he threw them back at the birds.

Jason used his wind powers again, to blast everything around him back, including the birds and the feathers. Meanwhile, Frank was still shooting the birds down, with his arrows, and when the feathers came down, he had a harder time dodging them, but Nico came to his aid. He used his black sword to deflect the feathers away, and when Frank ran out of arrows, he used the feathers as ammo, and he fired them back at the birds.

"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?!" shouted Coach Hedge, as he smacked some birds unconscious with his baseball bat. And like Nico, he used his metal baseball bat, which deflected the arrows, just like a sword.

He picked up some of the arrow feathers, and he threw them at the birds. "YOU BIRDS ARE SO PATHETIC! I'VE FOUGHT RABBITS STRONGER THAN YOU!"

As if the birds understood him, a bunch of them flew straight to him to attack, and another bunch flew to Nico, Frank, Leo, and Jason to attack them all at once, while the rest stayed in the air, to fire more arrow feathers.

"Nice going, Coach!" Frank yelled. "Now they're even more aggressive!"

"Calm yourself," Coach Hedge responded. "They're just a bunch of birds!"

Leo gritted his teeth. More birds were flying towards him, pecking him with their beaks, even though the fire burned them. Leo took the burning Stymphalian birds, and he threw them back at the crowd of birds in the air, that was firing arrow feathers at them, while Frank shot some of the birds down.

The birds that were hit with the arrows fell down dead, and so did the ones that got hit by the burning birds. Jason used wind blast again to blow the flames out, before they reached the ship.

"Hey! That gives me an idea!" he said. "Franks, Leo, you can't take them all down right?"

"Of course not!" Frank replied.

"All right, listen up you guys!" Jason shouted. "Frank, Leo, you two shoot down as many birds as you can! Nico, Coach Hedge…you guys kill as many birds as you can! I'll take care of the rest!"

"Ok!"

Frank continued to do what he did, he shot arrows at the birds, and Nico did the same. He used his sword to deflect the arrows, and he also used them to slash the birds to death. But he couldn't get them all, there were a lot of birds pecking at him, and some of them got him in the arms, shoulders, and legs. Coach Hedge was also trying to kill the birds, he knocked some out with his baseball bat, but there were too many, and like Nico. He received some wounds in the body.

Jason closed his eyes, and he concentrated on moving the air around the birds (who were in the air, not the ones pecking at our heroes), and he used a lot of his strength to create the strongest air blast yet.

The birds were blasted back, they flapped their wings, and they tried to fight, but the wind was too powerful. They 'flew' backwards, away from the ship, but Jason wasn't done yet. He manipulated the air around the ship, to send them forwards as quickly as possible, so that the Stymphalian birds wouldn't catch up to them.

Since the birds in the air were gone, there were no more arrow feathers being fired at them. But the birds that were close to our heroes were still attacking, since the air blast wasn't directed at them. Jason took out his gladius, he ran over to Coach Hedge, and he started to stab the birds attacking him. Since the birds were so close, Frank realized that ranged combat wasn't such a good idea, so he turned into a white tiger, and he used his quick tiger reflexes, and claws to kill some birds, while Nico slashed their bodies in half, and Leo used his fire to burn the birds attacking him.

* * *

Arion ran across the water, pulling a chariot with the Athena statue, and Piper (who was sitting beside the statue, feeling squished).

"C'mon, Arion," Hazel said. "We need to go faster!"

Arion whined angrily, and Hazel didn't need Percy the translator to know that he was complaining. Hazel could understand why. Ever since our heroes split up, they were going as fast as possible to reach Camp Half-Blood, which meant Arion was using up a lot of energy, and they've only stopped once to rest.

"You can rest later," Hazel said. "We can't stop now. Camp Half-Blood is being attacked, and we need to stop the Romans from destroying the entire place!"

"Hey…Hazel," Piper said. "How much longer until we get there?"

"Soon," Hazel answered. "I just hope that we don't have any monsters on our tail. That would _really_ slow us down."

* * *

Our heroes took down the birds. They were all wounded, except for Leo and Jason, but both of them were feeling rather tired, especially Jason. Those wind blasts cost him a lot of energy.

Nico, Frank, and Coach Hedge grabbed some of the knocked out birds, and threw them overboard. But before they could relax, the alarm sounded again. The heroes turned around, and they saw a group of ice warriors in golden armour, riding on gryphons, flying towards them.

"Great…another attack," said Frank.

"I'm still tired from that last one!" Nico said.

"Everyone, get ready to fight!" Jason said.

The warriors landed on the Argo II. One of them raised his staff (the rest had swords), and a bunch of ice shards flew towards our heroes. Leo immediately jumped in front of the ice, and he summoned some fire to counter the ice, but when the two elements came into contact with each other, the ice melted and turned into water, which put the fire out.

"See?" the ice mage said. "Your fire is useless, and you're all too tired to actually fight us. You're all useless here. Now then, stand still and allow us to capture you…"

**That's all for now! And Merry Christmas everyone! **


	3. Chapter 3: Greeks vs Romans

**(Author's Note: Here's chapter 3, sorry it was extremely late, I was just so fucking busy with real life, plus I had to make sure everything was up to standards, so that meant editing and rewriting, and I had to draw what some of the characters looked like, and that took a while, since my drawing skills sort of….suck. Enjoy chapter 3.) **

Leo narrowed his eyes at the ice mage. _Ice…that means…._

"Yes, that's right, I'm with Khione" the ice mage said, as if he had read Leo's mind.

_I knew it! _Leo thought. _There's no way she died!...So she must be working to bring Gaea back! _

The ice warriors surround our heroes, but the ice mage didn't move. He still stood in front of Leo with his staff pointed at him, while the ice warriors held their weapons at our heroes' throats.

"Try anything and he dies," one of the ice warriors said, with his sword at Jason's neck.

"Same here," said another one. He had his weapon at Nico's throat. "If you try anything at all, your friend here dies."

"It's useless to resist," the ice mage said. "Even if we aren't threatening you, you still don't have a chance against us. You're too tired to fight."

_That's right! _Leo thought. _Fighting those Stymphalian birds made us all really tired!...But how did he know that?...Unless…_

"You knew about the bird attack, didn't you?" Leo asked.

"Yes…we did," answered the mage. "It was all part of the plan…But don't worry we aren't going to kill you…at least not right now."

He stared into Leo's brown eyes, as if he was looking directly into his soul, and stealing his secrets. "We're here to escort you to someone…I think you already know her. You and Jason saw her in your nightmares didn't you?"

* * *

"SURRENDER!" Octavian screamed, pointing his gladius at the Greek campers standing before him, his eyes scanning the crowd before him, until they settled on Tyson. "And you, Cyclops! I want a…'word' with you later on about that harpy's whereabouts! And if you don't talk…well, we have ways of making you talk."

Camp Half-Blood looked terrible. It had been attacked several times before, but it rarely ever looked this bad. A lot of the buildings were burnt, burning, or smashed. There were loads of people (mostly Greeks) lying dead on the ground, in a pool of their own blood, with weapons lodged in their bodies, and the ones who were injured but not dad were recovering in the tents far west between the strawberry fields and pegasi stable), tended by the Aphrodite cabin.

The Romans (who were very experienced fighters) were able to advance quickly. The areas from the magical border to the training arena were taken over by Romans. The Greeks kept fighting, but the Roman forces pushed them back, and now the Greeks occupied the area from the armoury to the empty pegasus stables.

"Are you fucking kidding me!?" Clarisse shouted. "We're not gonna lose to you!"

"Definitely not!" repeated Tyson.

She was at the front of the line, and she turned back to see her fellow Greek campers. They didn't look so good. They had blood, and dirt all over their armour and face. She knew that they must be low on energy after fighting, but she could see a determined look in their eyes.

"What makes you think that we'll give up so easily?" she asked.

"Look around you," Reyna said calmly. "The Greeks are dropping like flies. Your camp is up in flames. If you continue to resist, you'll all die. Face it, daughter of Ares, Romans are just better fighters, and-

"SHUT UP!" Clarisse yelled. "WE'LL NEVER LET YOU ROMANS TAKE OVER THIS PLACE! AND NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, WE'LL NEVER GIVE UP! EVEN IF THE ODDS ARE COMPLETELY AGAINST US, WE'LL…"

"Fight…is that it?" Reyna finished for her. "You know…I met Annabeth, one of the campers here. She told me to not underestimate you Greeks….but she was wrong. You Greeks just can't beat the greatest empire of all time. If you surrender, you'll be captured, but you'll be alive. If you fight, you'll all die. Use your brain, daughter of Ares, unless you don't have one. Surrendering isn't always bad; it's a respectable way to end a battle, especially if it's a losing battle."

Clarisse gave Reyna a death glare. "I've already told you…I'LL NEVER GIVE UP! NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS! IF I DIE, I'LL DIE DEFENDING THE CAMP, NOT KILLED BY ROMANS!..."

Octavian smiled nastily. "Wow…she really doesn't have a brain! Not giving up when you should…what a stupid decision! I guess this means we'll have to kill instead of capture…but oh well! I never liked Greeks in the first place!"

"You don't understand it do you?" Clarisse growled. "I'm not fighting for glory, (even though I love that). I'm fighting to defend. Camp Half-Blood is a very special place to me! It's…it's…"

Another camper, Malcolm, a son of Athena (who was also at the front of the line) finished for her. "It's the one place where we don't have to look over our shoulder every five seconds, watching out for monster attacks, it's the place where we meet new people, just like us, it's the place where we can learn awesome skills and master them, it's a place where we act as mentors towards newbie demigods, so that they could become heroes, it's a place where new, happy memories are created…"

"Right!" agreed Clarisse. As a daughter of Ares, Clarisse was never that good with words, she was too focused on combat training to care about that sort of stuff, but she knew what Malcolm meant. She thought of all the good times at camp, like sitting on the beach with Silena, watching the fireworks on the fourth of July, watching duels in the arena, cheering on the winners and laughing at the losers, training with the other cabins and beating them all, playing Capture the Flag, canoe racing with some of the other cabins, coming back after a successful quest, with everyone cheering, and just lying on the grass, watching clouds when she was in a lazy mood. If the Romans took over, they would destroy the camp, and she (or anyone else) wouldn't be able to do any of those things anymore.

"It's our home!" Clarisse said. "And for some of us, it's the first and only proper home! And when it's threatened, I will do whatever it takes to defend it!"

Malcolm nodded in agreement. "And this place has been under attack loads of times before! But we always managed to stop them from completely destroying Camp; even the super-powerful Titans couldn't do it! And this time it won't be any different! We'll stop the Romans just like the Titans!"

"Malcolm…let's do this! Let's kill some Romans! For Camp Half-Blood!"

"For Athena!"

"YEAH!" cheered the rest of the Greeks and Tyson.

Clarisse, Malcolm and the rest of the warriors at the front of the line rushed at the Romans, while the archers (the children of Apollo) and the mages (the children of Hecate) at the back fired spells and arrows at them.

"So you've chosen to defy us?" Octavian shouted. "Fine! But hear this…When you attack us, the Empire will strike back! And we will strike you down!"

The Romans at the front ran forward as well, and their archers and mages (the children of Apollo and Trivia) began to shoot spells and arrows at the Greeks, whose determination allowed to fight harder than ever.

But so did the Romans and their animals. Aurum and Argentum did what they do best-biting people, and the giant eagles continued to fly overhead, pick up Greek campers, and drop them.

Will Solace, and some of the Apollo kids fired arrows at the eagles. The arrows landed on the eagles' undersides, keeping them back, but they were still able to fly, even with injuries.

Clarisse, Malcolm, and the other warriors fought. Some Roman Apollo kids fired arrows at her, but she dodged them. Then she ran forward, and stabbed a Roman camper in the heart before he could even make his first move. This shocked the Roman, making him drop his sword. Clarisse picked it up and used it to behead guy beside him.

She wasn't the only camper fighting. The other Ares kids went into berserker mode, and fought like crazy, along with the Hephaestus, Nike, Athena, Hermes cabin, and Tyson. The Tyche cabin was able to dodge most of the arrows and spells aimed at them. They picked up the arrows, and they threw them back. Some of the Romans were hit, and a few coughed up blood, and fell to the ground. The children of Demeter made poisonous plants grow around the heels of some of the Romans, effectively poisoning them.

But despite their best efforts, the Romans were still winning. They countered what the Greeks did. The children of Apollo and Trivia fired arrows and spells at an even faster rate. The children of Ceres did the same thing that the Demeter kids did, and they managed to weaken some Greeks with the same plant poison. The Venus, Mars, Vulcan, Mercury and Victoria kids fought their hardest. Octavian ran forward and attacked Tyson, using his speed against the cyclop's super-strength.

Even with their determination, the Greeks were out-numbered. The Romans had more fighters, and their army had managed to take out a lot of Greeks, and even though the Greeks also managed to kill some Romans, it simply wasn't enough for them to win. Still, they refused to give up when they were protecting their precious home. The best warriors were sent to the front, to replace the fallen ones, and the injured ones were brought to the tents.

"You'll regret not surrendering earlier, daughter of Ares" Octavian said, with a smirk. "Because I am the augur, and I can see into the future. Right now, I see your death."

"OH YEAH?" responded Clarisse. "WELL, I SEE YOU GETTING YOUR GIANT EGO BRUISED!"

"Fine!…have it your way!…"

The Roman children of Apollo fired loads of arrows at her. Clarisse blocked some of them with the sword she picked up earlier. But there were still a lot of them in the air, so Clarisse tried to dodge them.

Most of the arrows missed her, but a few were lodged in her arms and legs. She pulled them out, but while she was occupied with that, four children of Mars quickly ran forward.

_The arrows! _she thought. _They were just a distraction, so these guys can kill me! _

The Romans drew their swords before she could react, and Clarisse knew that she was doomed.

Just then, a thin bolt of lightning hit the Romans, and they fell to the ground, from the electrical shock. Clarisse looked up, and smiled when she saw Thalia and the rest of the Hunters of Artemis in the air, riding on pegasus ponies.

One of the eagles tried to attack Phoebe (one of the Hunters), but before it could do any damage, she took out a bow, and she quickly fired two silver arrows at the eagle's eyes. The arrows hit their target, blinding the eagle, and without his sight, the eagle could no longer go after them.

The other eagles tried to attack the Hunters, who shot arrows into their eyes (which weren't enough to kill them, but it definitely prevented them from fighting). Thalia continued to shock the Romans from above, with her lightning powers.

"I heard that you tried to kill Jason while he was in New Rome," Thalia said, narrowing her eyes at the crowd of campers in golden armour. "Normally I work for Artemis, and I don't care about Greek/Roman wars, but when you try to kill my brother….well, that's when you cross the line! Romans…I'm gonna make you regret that you even scratched Jason!"

**That's all for now! **


	4. Chapter 4: Athena Parthenos

**(Author's Note: Sorry this was so late, I was busy with real life. I've also made fan art of the Hunters of Artemis, the link is on my profile. Enjoy chapter 4.) **

Reyna turned her attention to Thalia and the rest of the Hunters of Artemis. Like the rest of the Romans, the arrival of the Hunters surprised her. At the same time, there was something about the Hunters, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

The Hunters had a familiar aura to her. They were powerful; they looked like they were stronger and faster than regular demigods and their silver weapons stood out against the celestial bronze and the imperial gold that the demigods used.

"I know what you are!" she said. "Hylla's told me about you!...You're the Hunters of Artemis, aren't you?"

"Well, well.." Thalia responded. "I see one Roman that recongizes us. You're not as ignorant as I thought."

Octavian gritted his teeth. "Followers of Diana, huh?...Well, you may have incapacitated our eagles! But you won't beat the rest of the Empire! I'm the augur, and I _know_ that you'll go down, just like these filthy Greeks!"

Thalia closed her eyes for a second. "Why don't we test your prediction out?"

"Fine! We will!" Octavia said, with an eager smile. "No one interfere with this! I'll easily kill her myself!"

Thalia opened her eyes, and she flew close to Octavian. She took out an arrow out of the quiver, loaded it to her bow, concentrated for a second so it was charged with electricity, and she fired it at him. Then she fired some more arrows in succession.

Octavian tired to slice the arrows in half while they were still mid-air with his gladius, but a painful shock went through his body the moment his blade made contact with the arrows.

He soon fell to his knees because his body couldn't take so many shocks. He gasped in pain, and he could sense the legion coming to his defence.

"I told you not to interfere!" Octavian said. "I'll kill her! I kill her all by myself!"

"You mean you'll try," Thalia corrected. She fired another arrow charged with electricity at him, and once again, Octavian tried to cut the arrows in half with his gladius while they were still mid-air, but he got shocked again when the blade of his gladius touched the arrow.

Octavian dropped to his gladius, and he fell to his knees again. While he was distracted with the pain, Thalia fired another arrow at him, this one charged with more electricity than the rest. The arrow hit him in the shoulder. Octavian cried out in pain, before he collapsed.

The other Romans had their mouths open on shock, as they watched a mere Hunter take out the new praetor (Percy's replacement).

"Whoa….you…you killed him!" said Dakota. For once in his life, he didn't have his flask of Kool-Aid with him.

"And before that you summoned lightning bolt to save that Ares kid from dying!" Reyna said. "You also said Jason was your brother…so you must be a daughter of Zeus!"

"Aren't you the smart one?" Thalia said. "That's right. I am Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus! Hunter of Artemis! Slayer of werewolves! Summoner of lightning! And as of today, killer of Romans!...So you'd better watch out!"

"DON'T LISTEN TO HER!" one of the Romans shouted. "SHE'S ONLY TRYING TO PSYCH YOU OUT! THERE'S ONLY ONE OF HER, BUT PLENTY OF US! WE CAN OUTNUMBER HER!"

"YEAH!" agreed the most of them.

"So you're going to take me on," Thalia said. "Fine…do whatever you want. Don't say I didn't warn you."

The Roman Apollo campers fired arrows at her, but Thalia steered her pegasus away from them. Now that the eagles couldn't fight anymore, half of the Hunters fired arrows at the Romans while they were mid-air, the other half steered their pegasi close to the ground, then they leapt off.

While the Romans were trying to kill the Hunters, the Greek Apollo cabin fired arrows and spells at the Roman archers and mages and the Greeks at the front attacked the Roman warriors. The Greeks fought harder than ever, and with the Hunters on their side, they had some hope inside them. Maybe, just maybe they've got a chance.

With two weapons in her hand, and all of her determination, Clarisse felt like she had received the blessing of Ares again. She managed to slash a Roman warrior in the chest, she then cut off another guy's arms, making him bleed to death, she slashed someone else in the neck, and she threw her spear at another Roman, which landed in his eye. Like Clarisse, the rest of the Ares cabin, the Athena cabin, Tyson, and the rest of the Greeks went all out, using their powers to their advantage to defeat them.

Some of the Greeks fell against the Romans, but the Romans were losing people too. Some of their archers and mages were shot by the Hunters, others were killed by the Greeks, and there were also dead Roman warriors. But despite the reinforcements, the Greeks were still falling because of Aurum and Argentum, who were at the front of the line, biting the Greeks, so they were distracted, and could be easily killed by the Romans.

"Let's make this battle a bit more even!" ordered Thalia. "Megan! Summon the animals!"

Megan, a Hunter with orange hair nodded. She was standing between the line of warriors and archers and mages. She took out a magical staff that she carried on her back, and she uttered an incantation in Ancient Greek. A glowing, green circle appeared around her, and another larger circle appeared around the first one. Runes appeared in-between the circles, and then there was a puff of smoke. Four white wolves appeared, and they charged at Aurum and Argentum in a two by two manner, attacking the mechanical dogs with their claws and fangs. The dogs fought back, but it was two against one for Aurum and Argentum. The wolves ganged up on them. Two of the wolves attacked the dogs from the front, while the other two attacked from the back. Aurum and Argentum tried to keep up. They clawed at the wolves, and they tried to bite them, but the wolves (being smaller) were able to leap into the air, land on their back, and scratch them with their claws.

While the canines were fighting, the Greek vs. Roman battle continued. The warriors at the front of the line were fighting like crazy, especially the Ares kids, who were filled with adrenaline, and they focused on how hard they would hit while they fought the Mars kids.

Clarisse and the rest of her cabin slashed and stabbed their way through the Roman line. They were all grouped together, and they all fought back to back, so that the Romans couldn't find an opening, even if they attacked from all sides. Some of the Roman mages and archers fired their arrows and spells at them, but the Greeks put their shields up, and the Hunters in the air responded by shooting the mages.

Now that she was dual wielding two weapons, Clarisse was able to get twice the kills she normally got with just her spear. The Romans charged toward her. One of them aimed his sword at her head, but she parried his attack with her spear. She then sent a wave of electricity through it, the currents traveled through their metal weapons, shocking him. His body was paralyzed, and she took that chance to stab him in the heart.

About five yards away, the Athena cabin was doing the same thing while they fought. They were also fighting back to back in a group, but they focused more on accuracy than how hard they would hit. The Romans attacked them from all sides, but they took them on, and they even took down some of them.

Malcolm noticed some of the mages and archers firing arrows and spells at them, at an even faster rate than before.

"Everyone! Put your shields up! Now!" He yelled. The Athena cabin followed his order. The arrows and spells hit their shields, preventing them from attacking for the moment. The Roman warriors took this as a chance to attack with their swords.

"Push them back!" ordered Malcolm. "Push them back with your shields!"

They did that, and they managed to knock some of the Romans back, but the Romans quickly got up, and more Romans rushed at them. But this time, instead of using weapons, they pushed their shields against their opponents' shields.

Malcolm and the other Greeks pushed back, but the Romans pushed back even harder, and with their superior numbers, they were starting to overwhelm the Greeks.

"Shit! We could really use some help over here!" one of the Athena kids shouted.

"On it!" someone replied.

A Hunter shot down some of the enemy warriors that had been attacking them, while another Hunter fired at the archers and mages, taking some of them down. The Athena cabin put their shields down. While the Romans tried to deal with the Hunters, the Athena cabin ran in single file, towards the mages and archers, to cut them down, so they didn't have to deal with any more annoying arrows and spells.

While they were doing that, Thalia flew close to the ground, and she leapt off her pegasus. She landed right in front of the Hermes cabin, who was preparing themselves to fight the children of Venus. The Romans charged at them, and the Greeks ran forward to greet them.

One of the Romans thrusted his sword at her, but Thalia dodged. She then activated Aegis. The Roman took one look at the shield. For a second, he looked okay. Then his face contorted with terror, and he ran away.

"Hey! Don't abandon us like that!" a Roman shouted. "Didn't you learn anything in legionnaire school? Don't ever-

The Roman stopped when she turned her head and saw the shield, she ran away too. Thalia then turned her attention to another Roman soldier and she tried to stab him with the spear, he dodged, but when he saw Aegis, he fled in terror, and Thalia took that chance to throw her spear, which impaled him in the back.

"They're turning the tables on us!" Dakota said. "And it's the Hunters' fault! We've got to take them out! But how?"

Reyna didn't respond. She looked all around her, and she saw people dying. The Athena cabin was butchering the mages and archers. the Hermes cabin was taking out the Venus children, the Ares cabin was striking down every enemy around them, the Apollo and Hecate children were casting spells, and killing some Romans, the Hunters (in the air) were firing arrows at the enemy, the ones on the ground were fighting with bronze swords in each hand, and Thalia was forcing the Romans to break rank with Aegis, and she killed them while they ran. Bloodshed was everywhere, but Reyna never wanted any of this to happen. She didn't even want to go to war in the first place, but everyone else wanted to, and she would look like a traitor to the Empire if she went against it. Besides, even if she did go against their decision, she wasn't sure if anybody would actually listen to her.

Right now, all she wanted to do was to shout at everyone, at the top of her lungs, telling them to stop, but she would be branded as a traitor, and the soldiers might actually turn on her.

_Annabeth…you'd better find that statue! _She thought. _Or else Gaea would rise, and kill us while we're all distracted with this!_

Fortunately for her, she didn't have to wait that long, because at that moment she (and many of the others) heard clopping. She turned her head towards the beach and saw a horse with someone riding it, pulling a chariot that carried some sort of light running across the water.

Everyone stopped fighting for a moment and watched in awe as the horse got closer and closer, and the light got brighter and brighter, to the point where staring at it for too long would hurt your eyes.

When the horse got very close to them, Reyna realized that the one riding it was Hazel, and it was actually carrying Athena Parthenos statue….

**In the words of Bugs Bunny, "that's all folks!" Well, for now anyways….**


	5. Chapter 5: An Ancient Enemy

**(Author's Note: Sorry this was so late. I was just so busy with real life that I didn't get around to typing this, until now. Enjoy the chapter.) **

As Arion slowed down, Hazel could see everyone stopping what they were doing before to stare. The battlefield was silent. The campers stopped fighting due to their awe of seeing the lost Athena statue shining brightly in the sunlight. The archers and mages stopped firing, the Hunters in the air landed, and the people from the tents (which were behind the archers) ran out to see what was going on. Even Aurum, Argentum and the white wolves stopped fighting.

Hazel looked around, and at the same time, Piper climbed out of the chariot. Both of them could see that the Greek camp looked terrible. All the buildings on the Roman side (which stretched from the border to the arena) were ruined and burnt. There were dead campers from both sides on the battlefield. They could also see that both sides had archers and mages standing at the back, and the Romans had them surrounded, but the Greeks were fighting back. Hazel could see some of the Greeks had broken through the line of Roman invaders, driving them back. She had not been a part of the battle, but she could tell the Greeks who had broken through would do anything to defend their home, just like she did when Polybotes and his army invaded Camp Jupiter.

"Holy shit! Is that…is that really…_the _statue?" Dakota asked, breaking the silence.

"Oh my gods…" Malcolm said. "The Athena Parthenos….it's been lost since…forever. And now I'm just standing here staring at it."

"Wow….just wow…" another camper said.

"How did you get it back?" Reyna asked. "And where's Annabeth? Bringing the statue back was her mission, so shouldn't she be here too?"

At that moment, a gust of wind blew across the camp, causing Hazel and Piper's hair to be blown across their faces, hiding their eyes.

"Annabeth is in Tartarus," Piper said. "Percy's there too."

Nobody responded to that. Both camps were equally shocked to hear that Percy Jackson, one of the strongest demigods they've ever met was in Tartarus, the place that held the worst monsters, and other enemies of the gods.

"No fucking way!" Clarisse said. "That guy duelled Kronos and Hyperion and lived, killed all those monsters in Manhattan when Kronos invaded without breaking a sweat, and he killed a minotaur when he first came here! And you're telling me he's in Tartarus?!"

"How did it happen?" Reyna asked. "I mean…we all know he's super strong….he rescued Thanatos, killed Polybotes, and retrieved the eagle all in one day! How did someone like him end up in Tartarus?"

Hazel told them about what happened, and she carefully made sure she didn't miss anything. She revealed what really happened the day Leo fired on the Romans, she then told them about finding Narcissus and Echo, meeting Bacchus, seeking out Phorcys and Keto, and going to Fort Sumter to help Annabeth with her mission.

"All right, so let me get this straight," Reyna interrupted. "So Leo fired on us because he was possessed by an Eidolon? Not because he was trying to start a war?"

"Yes, Hazel said. "It's the truth, I swear on Styx."

Reyna paused for a second. She knew that nobody would lie when they swore on Styx, especially a daughter of Pluto, who knew perfectly well what would happen if she did.

"Please, continue" Reyna said. "I know that we caught up to you at Fort Sumter, but you managed to…get away. What happened after that?"

It was Piper's turn to talk. She told them about convincing Hercules to let them into the Mediterranean Sea, being attacked by Chrysaor and his crew, and finally arriving in Rome where Hazel, Frank and Leo found Archimedes' secret lair and kicked some Eidolon arse, she, Jason and Percy killed Ephialtes and Otis and saved Nico with Bacchus' help, Annabeth outwitted Arachne, but she miscalculated one small detail, and Arachne managed to drag her into Tartarus, along with Percy.

"So…you're saying that my brother is in Tartarus?" somebody asked, and Hazel recognized that voice.

She turned to Tyson, who looked like he was about to cry. She could totally relate to him there, she felt just like that when she found out Gaea had captured Nico. "We think he's still alive."

"This is not good," Chiron said, approaching the two demigods from the back of the Greeks side, where he had been firing bolts from his crossbow at the Romans. "Percy is strong, like Heracles, Achilles, and just about every hero I've taught, but….I'm not sure if even he can survive Tartarus, that place is hell."

"Guys," Piper said. "It's time for us to stop fighting, and work together! The statue has been found, and it's time to end this feud, once and for all! Look around you! So many people have died pointless deaths over something that happened thousand of years ago! Now that we have the lost statue, we can call off the feud, and work with each other, so the prophecy can be fulfilled, and Gaea can be stopped! Seriously, this is just the tip of the iceberg! If you think this is bad, it's gonna be so much worse if Gaea rises! She'll destroy all of western civilization, along with everyone involved with it, including you and me, and the only way to prevent that is to forget the rivalry, and work together! If we continue to fight, we'll just be giving Gaea what she wants! We'd only be destroying ourselves! And while we're busy fighting, Gaea will rise, and kill the remaining people! But if we work together, we can fulfill the prophecy, and stop her! So what will it be? Saving the world or helping an evil goddess destroy it? Choose wisely!"

Both sides were silent for what seemed to be a long time. The Greeks glanced at each other, and the Romans did the same thing. Finally, someone spoke.

"I think we can all agree that Gaea must be stopped at all costs!" Reyna said. "If working with Greeks will stop her, then I'll do it!"

She turned to the rest of the legion. "If Gaea awakens, we're screwed! She'll kill us all! Slowly and painfully! Look, we all share a common enemy, so why not team up? We can't kill Gaea all by ourselves, she's too strong!"

"Agreed!" Chiron said. "But we can't do that until you return the statue to where it really belongs, on Olympus."

"Fine…" Piper said. "But we thought bringing the statue to camp would stop everything."

"It did," Chiron said. "For now. But in order to put a permanent end to the feud, you have to bring the statue to Olympus, the Empire State building I mean, not the original Olympus. Athena will explain everything there. Go!"

"I don't know where it is!" Hazel said.

"I'll give you the directions," Piper said. "We'll leave right now!"

"Wait!" someone said, and Piper saw Drew Tanaka run up to her. She looked different from the last time Piper saw her. Instead of wavy hair, Drew's hair was now cut in a hime style, she had bandages on her left arm from her wrists to her elbows, little makeup, and no jewellery at all.

"Piper, I just want to say that I'm sorry…for everything," Drew said. "I'm really sorry for being a total bitch…I'm sorry for everything…Please forgive me, Piper."

Piper paused for a bit before she responded, because she was shocked. She never thought Drew would ever apologize. "Uh…can we discuss this later? 'Cause we _really_ need to get to Olympus."

Piper climbed back into the chariot, and Hazel got back on to Arion, who ran through the crowd, forcing everyone to get out of his way, he bolted past the camp borders and he was soon out of sight.

Hazel followed Piper's simple ('turn left! turn right!') directions, and with Arion's super-speed, they soon reached the Empire State Building. As usual, the security guard was in the lobby reading a Kane Chronicles book. When he saw Hazel and Piper come in with the Athena Parthenos, his jaw dropped, and his eyes widened.

"Hey," Piper said, putting on her best charmspeaking voice. "Can you lift the statue into the elevator for us? And we're going to leave the chariot here, since it can't fit into the elevator, is that okay with you?"

The security guard nodded, and after struggling for a while, he finally managed to get it in to the elevator, and then the demigods stepped inside.

After a long ride to the 600th floor, the doors opened, and the demigods pushed the statue out of the elevator, which of course, was not easy, but they managed it. Hazel and Piper saw a few immortals walking past them.

"Hey! Can you guys lift this statue to the throne room for us?" Piper asked. "We're about to save the world, but we need some help, and I was hoping that you guys would help, you know you want to."

She smiled and batted her eyelashes at them, hoping it would work.

"Ok, sure I'll help," one of the immortal said. Piper was surprised. She didn't really expect it to work, since the whole 'bat your eyelashes' thing was something she saw on TV, but she was glad it did.

Piper, Hazel and the immortals pushed the statue into the throne room, that thing was heavy, and it took them a while, but they eventually reached the throne room. After that, the immortals left. Piper and Hazel glanced around the throne room, and their eyes widened at the sight of it.

Even though Piper and Hazel had never been here before, they knew that that something was wrong. It looked like a tornado had been blown through the place. There were pieces of crumpled bloody paper all over the floor, scorch marks on the floor, table, and some of the thrones. Speaking of thrones, some of them were partially destroyed, as if a cannonball went through them, and the table was slanted at an angle, because two of its legs had been broken.

The demigods also noticed a figure in a blood red cloak, staring out the window (which was cracked, as if somebody shot at it with a gun). Through the reflection, the demigods could see the stern face, wavy light blond hair, and stormy grey eyes that belonged to the figure.

"Psst…Hazel, I'll do the talking," Piper whispered. "Since I don't think she likes Romans, no offence, of course."

Hazel nodded. "Understood."

Piper took a few steps forward. "Umm…Athena?"

The figure turned around, and Piper could see her intense, grey eyes boring into her brown ones, as if she was reading her mind.

"We, uh…brought your statue back," Piper said.

Athena turned her eyes to the ivory and gold statue of her. "I see….I'm so glad, I've been looking for this for centuries…but where's Annabeth? Last time I checked, she was the one who was supposed to bring it back, not you."

"Annabeth found it," Piper said. "It's a long story…"

Piper told her everything, about how they got to Rome, and how Annabeth went through the underground Roman maze, got past the agility obstacles, outsmarted the ghosts, and tricked Arachne into weaving her own trap while she was dealing with the pain of a broken ankle.

"…I'm…I'm so sorry, Athena!" Piper said. "But we tried to secure the statue to the airship…the ground opened up, and Arachne dragged Annabeth to Tartarus. Percy tried to help, but he got pulled down there as well…and we were so busy with the statue…I'm so sorry…"

"I understand," the goddess replied calmly.

Piper felt a wave of relief. "You do?"

"Yes," Athena said. "In that case, she failed the mission."

"Huh? Failed?" Piper asked, sounding just as surprised as she felt. "But she was the first demigod in centuries to find the statue! How was that a fail?"

"Because on that day at the train station, when I told her to retrieve the statue, I meant to bring it back to me herself," Athena explained. "But instead, she sent people like _you, _a traitor and a Roman in her place instead. How disgraceful!"

"Traitor? Disgraceful?"

"Yes, that's right, daughter of Aphrodite," Athena said coldly, especially when she referred to Venus, sounding like she just had a handful of feces shoved into her mouth.

"You're a traitor to Greeks everywhere by working with Romans, just like Annabeth, working with that _Percy_!"

Piper clenched her fists, but she controlled her anger. Hazel was starting to get annoyed as well. Athena noticed this, nevertheless she kept on talking.

"Annabeth was supposed to bring the statue back to me," she said. "And I was going to use it for revenge."

"Hang on; I think I've heard of something like that!" Hazel said. She thought of an old Roman legend about Minerva, that she overheard one camper tell to another one when she first arrived at Camp Jupiter. As soon as she said that, Hazel realized that she should've kept quiet, but it was too late now. "You can either use the statue for peace or revenge…and you're picking revenge?"

"Yes," Athena said. "Those Romans sacked Athens; they stole and desecrated my statue, not to mention humiliating me by renaming me Minerva and portraying me as a goddess of defence and crafts! I was once a fighter! Look at me now! The Romans…they never gave me the respect I deserved. I was once worshipped as a goddess of war and wisdom! I was prayed to before battle, people sacrificed to me! I was once admired and looked up to!...But not anymore!...I was so angry when I found out what they did, so I cursed them, I made sure that whenever they came into contact with Greeks, my children would take revenge and kill some Romans for me! And to this day, that curse still exists, ensuring that Greeks and Romans would start fighting whenever they crossed paths."

"Then remove the curse!" Hazel said. "Please! We need to work together, or else we'll never fulfill the Prophecy, and close the Doors of Death! Then Gaea will rise and kill us all!"

"No, I must take revenge!" Athena said. "The Romans turned me into a minor goddess, and they stole my favourite statue! They'll pay for that! They'll feel the same pain I felt when they took my statue! All of them need to suffer!"

Hazel dropped to her knees. "I'm sorry, ok! Even though the event happened centuries ago, and I had no control over it! But now, I'm going to apologize on behalf of Camp Jupiter! I'm sorry for everything! But we need you to remove the curse, these are desperate times! Please listen to me! While we're distracted with the Greek vs. Roman thing, Gaea will return! She already has Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus, she just needs their blood, for some sort of an evil ritual I'm assuming, and then she'll come back and kill everyone!"

"None of you understand it!" Athena said angrily. "You're all traitors! Just like the other Olympians!"

"What?"

Athena pointed to one of the ruined thrones. "We had a meeting a day ago before you arrived, and that was the result…Long story short, they wanted me to get over the whole thing, and when I refused..."

"A fight broke out," Piper finished for her.

"You're smarter than you look daughter of Aphrodite," Athena said. "Yes, I would not cave in to their demands; all of them wanted me to end the curse for the sake of the Prophecy, but I refused. Why should I? The Romans didn't think twice about stealing my statue, so why should I think twice about killing them?"

"Annabeth would never agree to this!" Hazel cried, and got up. "She wanted to use the statue to make peace!"

"Hazel's right!" Piper said. "You're the goddess of wisdom, so use it! I've been trying to tell you that revenge is exactly what Gaea wants! If you kill the Romans, we'll never fulfill the Prophecy, the Doors of Death won't be closed, and Gaea will sacrifice Percy and Annabeth to come back! Even if you're so blinded by revenge that you don't care about the rest of the word, don't you care for your own daughter? Don't you care if she dies?"

"No, she's not my daughter anymore," Athena said bitterly. "She betrayed me by working with people like _you. _I sent her on the mission, because she was the one who had the best chance of finding the statue, but also because I wanted her to come to her senses; I hoped that the mission would make her realize that Romans were the enemy, but no! She's allied herself with them! I've disowned her!"

"But…this…you're crazy!...You can't do that!" Piper said.

Athena gave them both a death glare that made them both flinch on the inside. "Don't you talk to me in that disrespectful manner! Both of you came here to make me remove the curse, right? But I've made it very clear that I won't change my mind! And both of you are about to make me very angry! So I suggest you both leave if you've got nothing else to say!"

_Or else what? You'll kill us? _Hazel thought. But she didn't dare say that out loud. She and Piper weren't feeling very suicidal, so they both turned around and left.

"Leave the statue here!" Athena said. "Now that I finally have it back, I want it on display, at the central park of the gods as a symbol of my return as a warrior goddess!"

Piper and Hazel got to the elevator. The ride down was very quiet. Both of them were frustrated that they couldn't convince Athena to remove the curse, angry and sad that after all that work they put into getting the statue back and returning it, it wouldn't make a difference in making peace and that Athena was so obsessed with revenge that she couldn't see reason anymore, and they felt hopeless knowing that due to the curse, another conflict between the Greeks and Romans would break out, which would probably contribute to the Prophecy not being fulfilled.

"Do we go back to the Argo II?" Hazel asked. "I just…I don't know what to tell the others about this."

"Yes, we're going back," Piper said. "We can't give up, no matter what Athena says or does…ugh…I don't know how Annabeth deals with her mum…but…we can't give up just like that. We have to fight until the last second…everyone's counting on us, especially Percy and Annabeth. We can't let them down!"

"Maybe this is all part of the prophecy," Hazel said, in a feeble attempt to see the bright side. "Maybe we'll end the feud some other way…the prophecy wasn't very specific about that."

"Maybe," Piper said sceptically.

For the rest of the elevator ride, they remained quiet, until they got to the lobby, where they dragged the chariot out. Hazel then called Arion, summoned some gold and fed it to him, and the two demigods were off again.

* * *

The ice warriors (led by the mage) escorted our heroes underground, through a series of tunnels. Both Leo and Jason kept glancing at each other, they remembered the ice mages words: _You and Jason saw her in your nightmares didn't you?_

After spending his entire life as a demigod, Jason knew that the monster he saw in his nightmares was in there somewhere, waiting for him and Leo.

_Leo said this was planned out all along! _He thought. _And he's right! They sent the Stymphalian birds to tire us out, then they came, so we wouldn't have the energy left to fight them, forcing us to co-operate! And they did a good job too, even if they hadn't confisticated our weapons…I'm not sure I can take them on at this state. _

_Whoever sent out these ice people wants us dead, that's for sure! _Leo thought. _I know who it is…I've seen her in my nightmares…I just wish I knew her name too! The ice people were just sent out to bring us to her!...But I'm a hundred percent certain that Gaea's the one pulling the strings, behind the scenes…and she's got Khione with her! _

"Hey, Jas-

"No talking!" the ice mage interrupted, and one of the ice warriors poke Leo in the back with his ice weapon. They continued in silence until they reached a pair of black double doors. The mage opened them, and they all stepped inside. The doors slammed shut behind them, and our heroes gasped.

They were now inside a dungeon which was lit with a few torches. There was a pile of human skulls and other bones at corners of the room, and a bunch of earth warriors were lined up against the left wall. There was a loud hissing noise from the snakes that were at the left and right side of the…_thing _that was standing at the center of the room, facing our heroes.

From the waist up, the monster had raven hair and gold eyes with slits instead of pupils. She was wearing an imperial gold chestplate, and she was holding a matching golden spear. But as our heroes' eyes panned down her body, they could see that she had a light brown snake tail from the waist down.

The monster smiled, revealing her two fangs, and she flicked out her forked tongue for a second before taking it back. "Hello, and welcome to your final destination…."

**That's all for now! And I would really love it if you left a review. All kinds of reviews are welcome, I love praise as much as the next author, and receiving them really brightens up my day, but I also welcome constructive criticism. Flaming, however is not welcome because writing "dis story sux!11" in your review does not accomplish anything; in fact, it's more likely for me to ignore such comments. But if you really didn't like something in this story, and you want to bring that to my attention, the best way to do so is to leave a review stating which part you didn't like, why you didn't like it, and how I should change it, that will definitely capture my attention, and I will certainly go back, look at what I've written and edit it. **


	6. Chapter 6: Snake's Tale

**(Author's Note: I am **_**so **_**sorry about this. Chapter 6 should have been out weeks ago. I apologize for the extremely long wait, but I was just so fucking busy with real life, and there were other problems that forced me to put writing on hold. Plus I had a bit of writer's block, which made it worse. Once again, I'm so sorry for taking so long to update, but I've got some good news. Real life has…well, calmed down, so for now I should be able to update this regularly again.) **

**I've also read some of the reviews and I'm going to take some time to address a question left by a reader. Diana S said 'y****ou really have an imagination! I love how u have a lot of action. Just, could u add some more stuff with Annabeth and Percy?(battles against monsters specifically) Thanks!' **

**Yes, I do have some 'Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus' scenes planned out. And since I don't want to give out any spoilers, that's all I can say for now.) **

"You!" Coach Hedge and Frank shouted at the same time, surprising them both.

"Oh, you know me?" The monster said. "I feel so flattered."

"I…I think…."

Frank's voice trailed off. He thought of the old days, when he still lived with his grandma, and he didn't know that he was a demigod. His grandmother used to tell him stories about his family, and stories of heroes like Meleager, Periclymenus and all of the monsters they fought. At that time, Frank thought they were just stories so he didn't pay that much attention to them, but now he wished he did. Those stories contained useful information wish, which could save his life.

Frank racked his brain for anything that could help, but he couldn't come up with anything at the moment. He was sure that his scumbag brain would think of something hours from now, when he didn't need that information anymore, but he needed it now.

The monster smirked. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

Frank glared at her, but he said nothing.

"Looks like you overestimated yourselves," the monster said, licking her lips with that creepy tongue of hers. "Did you actually believe you'd make it to Epirus, let alone save the world? No, your journey ends here. Your friends will be tortured in Tartarus before having the honour of being sacrificed to revive Gaea, and you will die here!"

"NO!" Coach Hedge cried. "I WON'T ALLOW THAT! AND NEITHER WILL THEY!"

"Yeah!" agreed Leo. "I don't know who the fuck you are, but I won't die here! And I definitely won't lose to you!"

"But I know who she is!" Coach Hedge said. He turned to our heroes, who where surrounded by ice warriors with their weapons pointed at them. "And she's one of the worst monsters of Greek mythology!"

He gave the monster a death glare, which was pretty scary for a middle-aged satyr. "LET'S JUST KILL HER AND GET IT OVER WITH IT!"

Before he could even make a move, the ice mage pointed his staff at him, and he fired a spell, causing ice to quickly creep up his body, starting from his feet. Within seconds, the ice climbed up his body, they only stopped when they covered his mouth.

"Yeah, I don't think so," the monster said. "You can't ruin this moment for me. I've been waiting centuries for this. Finally, I'll have my revenge! And Hera will have a taste of her own medicine!"

Something clicked in Frank's brain. A half-snake monster who wants revenge on Hera? It was something he heard before. He wasn't a hundred percent sure, but he was starting to get an idea. But instead of guessing, he was going to make her reveal everything. Besides, making her talk was a good way of stalling, which would buy them time, allowing them to think of something.

"Wow…Hera must've done something really bad to upset you like that," Frank said.

"Let me guess…she tortured you, killed off your entire family, burned you alive, stabbed you and left you out to die, pushed you in front of a train or something like that right?"

The monster stared at him for a few seconds before talking. "What you say is partly true. Hera, or Juno as the Romans called her, she's the one who turned me into…_this_."

"Oh," Frank said. "She must've been really mad to do that. What did you do?"

"Yes, she was mad," the monster said.

He glanced at Leo, Jason and Nico, and he hoped that they understood that they had to keep her talking. And Frank continued to search his brain for answers to who she was.

_All right, so half of her is a snake and Hera made her that way, _he thought. _Hera…Hera, Hera, Hera…..isn't she the goddess of marriage?...If that's the case then…_

"You had an affair with Zeus, didn't you?" Frank said.

The monster looked him in the eyes, but Frank could tell that hers were far away, like she was stuck in a flashback. "I was the Queen of Libya. That was a long time ago, when I was still human; when I was still beautiful…I had many suitors, and I caught the attention of Zeus. Yes…I had an affair with him, and we had two kids. But when Hera found out about it, she went batshit insane."

_No shit, Sherlock _Frank thought.

"She made me watch while she murdered my own children," the monster continued. "Then she cursed me, making sure that I'd never forget it and turning me into this ."

Right after she said that, her eyelids turned brown, as if someone poured acid on her skin and the skin were being melted off. The brown eyelids then fell to the ground, and while that was happening, they flew in different directions, and landed everywhere. Our heroes glanced at the brown stuff, and they realized that it was dirt! Her eyelids had been fake all along, they were only made with dirt…dirt that was supplied by Gaea!

"Yeah, she made sure that you'd never forget it all right," Nico commented. "By making sure that you'd never close your eyes."

"So then what?" Leo asked.

"Let me guess," Frank said. "You never forgot…so you never got over it, so…"

_Let's see…had an affair with Zeus, Hera killed her children, turned her into a snake monster, she never forgot it….this must've caused some serious problems…Yeah, I definitely heard about this before with Grandma…if that's true, then…_

"You coped with it by murdering other people's children," Frank said. "And if that's true…then I know who you are!"

He gritted his death, and gave her his best death glare. "Lamia, isn't it?"

"Very good," Lamia (and what a relief it is to call her by her name) said. "But knowing who I am won't save you!"

"No, but kicking your arse will!" Leo responded.

Nico nodded. "I made a promise to Percy, and I'm not gonna break it! The entire world is counting on us, and I won't let them down!"

"Agreed!" said Jason.

Of course it was easier said than done. Our heroes were not in a good situation. They were surrounded by ice warriors, who had their weapons pointed at them, their own weapons were confisticated by the ice warriors, and they were also face to face with Lamia, one of the worst monsters from Greek mythology. They were also tired after the battle with the Stymphalian birds. Obviously, they couldn't let Lamia win. If they died here, the Doors of Death would never be fully closed, Percy and Annabeth would be sacrificed, Gaea would rise and destroy the entire world, and the Prophecy of Seven would never be fulfilled.

"Hmph…you're all a bunch of fools!" Lamia said. "You don't even realize the odds are completely against you! Oh well. You demigods are just so stubborn, and you're always clinging onto your pathetic lives, even when it's obvious that you've already lost!"

"Why you!…"

Lamia smirked, and pointed to the snakes. "I'm gonna deal with Jason, the champion of Hera and you Leo, and the one she babysat, I won't be needing any help killing these so called 'heroes'. "

She then pointed at the ice warriors (and the ice mage). "And you guys kill the spare."

"That's what you think!" Jason said. "Leo! Frank! Nico! You guys kill the ice people! I'll take on the boss!"

"But you can't do it alone!" Leo said.

"And you're the only one with fire powers!" Jason replied. "We can't kill the ice people without you!"

"Fine!"

Lamia slithered towards Jason, whose mind was racing, in order to think of something that could save him. For something without legs, Jason was surprised by how fast she was. She thrust out her spear at him, but he dodged.

"Oh come on!" he cried. "At least fight fair, will you? Or are you just that scared of an unarmed demigod low on energy?"

He continued to taunt her and wound her pride. "Wow…you must be _really_ low on confidence…or you just really suck at fighting. But I guess we'll never know, will we? Since I'm about to die and all."

Lamia paused. "Hmm…you do have a point. I even said that the odds were against you…there is no way of escape for you…I suppose it would be fun to watch you struggle against your inevitable fate. And I do like to toy with my victims before they die."

She slithered to the pile of bones and skulls, and she grabbed a rusty, bronze hilt with a blade that was snapped in half. She tossed it at Jason, who caught it.

"All right then," Lamia said. "We'll have a 'fair' duel, but I'll still win."

Jason gritted his teeth. Lamia must've sensed his anger and frustration because she gave him a smirk, just to spite him.

He held the broken sword in his hand and examined it. _This sword isn't gonna help me at all! There's no blade, and the rust…how old is this thing?...Ugh, with all this rust, it wouldn't be useful, even if it had a blade!_

He sighed._ Well, what did you expect? A monster and a servant of Gaea to play fair?_

"You're finished, Jason Grace, son of Jupiter!"

Lamia slithered toward him, and Jason tried to use his remaining energy to summon lightning to replace the broken blade, but nothing came. He tried again, but still….nothing, and as Lamia got closer and closer, he got more desperate.

Meanwhile, Leo, Frank and Nico were standing back-to-back. They were surrounded by ice warriors and the ice mage, who was facing Leo, who really wished Percy was here. Then he'd use his hydrokinesis powers to do something about the ice warriors. But Leo forced that thought out of his head, wishing wasn't going to do them any good in this situation.

"Hey, Frank! I'm going to fire it up!" Leo said in order to warn him.

"Ok, understood!" Frank responded.

They moved at the same time. Frank transformed again, and this time he turned himself into a velociraptor, and Leo engulfed both of his palms with fire.

The ice mage pointed his staff at Leo. "Ice Missiles!"

A second later, sharp pointy ice needles about thirty centimetres in size appeared in the air, and they flew towards Leo, at an extremely fast rate.

He summoned more fire, covering the entire front side of his body. The ice hit Leo, but they melted when they came into contact with his fire. The melted ice, put some of Leo's fire out, but he still rushed at the mage, ignoring the fact that he was summoning more ice. When he got really close to the mage, he summoned more fire to his hands, and the flames formed a sphere around his hand.

Before the mage could do anything, Leo punched the mage in the chest, creating a deep wound with his flames, but the mage didn't seem very concerned with it.

"I've already told you before," the mage said. "Your fire won't help you."

He pointed the staff at his chest wound, and the missing ice regenerated. "See?"

"I'm not impressed," Leo said. He reached forward, and his fingers enclosed around the staff. The fire from his hand spread to the ice staff. He placed his other hand on the staff, causing the flames to spread even faster.

It didn't take very long for the entire staff to be consumed by fire. The mage dropped his staff, and then Leo kicked him in the chest, which made an even deeper wound than the time he punched the mage. The kick went all the way through, you could see Leo's foot poking out through the mage's back.

Leo grabbed the mage by the throat. The fire in his hands wasn't as strong as it was before, due to the contact with melted ice, but the flames weren't completely put out. The fire started to melt the mage's neck. Water seeped into Leo's flaming hand, putting out more fire. Leo let go, the mage fell to the ground, and Leo kicked its head off.

He turned back to see Frank the Velociraptor slash an ice warrior in the stomach with his claws, causing him to collapse to his knees. Without a moment of hesitation, Frank ripped off his head with his powerful jaws. The ice warrior dropped his sword, and Nico picked it up. He knocked another ice warrior's swords out of his hands, picked it up, and he stabbed the ice warrior in the chest. Leo then glanced at Jason to see how he was doing, but then he saw a horrible sight.

Lamia opened her mouth, and her tongue extended to unnatural lengths, coiling itself around Jason's neck…

**That's all for now, I'll try to post chapter 7 next week. **


	7. Chapter 7: Fire and Lightning

**(Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. I'm really sorry for the long wait. This should have been out sooner, but you know how I am with deadlines and how great I am at procrastinating. So here's chapter 7. I also had some reviewers tell me that I shouldn't have the characters cuss so much, but what I consider offensive may be different from what you consider offensive. For instance, I'm not offended at all by words like crap, damn, and arse, but that doesn't work for everybody. So please leave a review telling me which cuss words I should leave out. ) **

It was just like his dream. Lamia's tongue was wrapped around his neck. He dropped his broken sword, and his hands grabbed on to her tongue. Jason tried to undo it, his fingers tried to pry the tongue away from his neck, but it didn't help at all, Lamia's grip just got tighter and tighter, while Jason's vision got blurrier and blurrier. And just like his dream, he could hear hissing, as if the other snakes in the dungeon were celebrating his dying moment.

Leo knew that he had to act quickly, or else Jason would suffocate. He put his fire out, and he wiped his hands (which was wet with melted ice-water) on his pants. He then summoned more fire to his hands. Now that they were no longer wet, the fire was stronger and they burned more brightly.

_Don't worry, Jason! _He thought. _I'm coming! _

He rushed at Lamia, who had no way of avoiding the attack since a lot of her tongue was coiled around Jason, and she didn't have enough time to uncoil it. Leo plunged his fiery hand into her side.

"Let him go, you filth!" he shouted. "Or it'll get a lot worse! Let him go, or I'll burn you alive! Right here and right now!"

Lamia loosed her grip, and the tip of tongue started to unravel, followed by the rest of it, and the tongue retreated back into her mouth.

_Ugh! How does she even have enough room in her mouth to store that? _Leo wondered.

The monster turned to him, and Leo raised his other hand, knowing that fire would keep her back.

"You! Son of Hephaestus!" she snarled. "I haven't forgotten about you! Jason might be my main target, but I'll get you too! You might not be as important as the champion of Hera, but she still babysat for you! I'll kill both of you, and get back at Hera for all the crap she pulled on me!"

Leo opened his mouth, but before he could fire back at her, he heard a groaning sound, coming from across the room. He turned his attention Jason, who was now standing on all fours, after falling to the floor when Lamia released him. Leo leapt back, and ran to Jason.

"Are you all right?" Leo asked.

"Better, now that I can breathe again," Jason answered, as he slowly got up.

Leo glared daggers at Lamia. "Sorry to disappoint you, but you won't be getting your revenge today. Instead of you killing us, it's gonna be the other way around."

Lamia smirked. "Ooh, a threat."

Leo gritted his teeth. This monster wasn't even taking him seriously. She was just acting like he was some bratty little kid who didn't have the skills to back up his boast, like he was someone not even worthy of her attention. She even said it herself, he wasn't even important. She was treating him like some newbie she could kill in a second.

"You have something in common with Porphyrion, Enceladus, Otis, Ephialtes and everything else we'll meet from here to Epirus," Leo told her. "You're just an obstacle, and like every obstacle, we'll smash through you! If you don't believe me, well…then you'll believe it when you die!"

"Bring it on, kid!" challenged Lamia.

"I will!" Leo replied.

Frank and Nico faced the ice warriors, which were circled around them, and they were closing in. Both of them were injured. Nico's shoulder was bleeding, his arms and legs had gashes on them, and there was blood streaming down his face, and Frank had slashes all over his back, arms, legs and face, although his tough reptilian skin protected him from critical damage.

"Hey, you can turn into animals right?" Nico said. "How about turning into a phoenix?"

Frank turned around, opened his mouth (exposing his sharp raptor teeth), gave Nico a menacing glare, and made a sound that was a cross between a hiss and a growl. Nico was pretty sure that was a 'no.'

"Well…can you turn into something stronger?" Nico asked. "Something that could kill these guys with a quick powerful blow?"

Frank paused to think, and then he got it. He thought of a big powerful creature with was adapted to the cold, this creature could also hold its breath for a very long time and it could also kill seals and walruses. Then his body started to change, he grew larger and taller, fur appeared on his body, his snout changed into a different shape, and his tail became very short and stubby.

Standing on his two legs, Frank roared, intimidating every ice warrior around him. A second later, he got back to standing on all fours.

"Nice! A polar bear!" Nico said. "But wait! Can you lower yourself to the ground?"

Frank bent his legs, lowering his body. Nico placed the handle of the ice sword between his teeth, and climbed onto Frank's back. He took the sword out of his mouth, and held the sword straight up, so that its blade was pointing at the ceiling.

"Let's do this!"

The ice warriors must've felt the same way because they quickly rushed at Frank and Nico, all at once. The ice warriors thrusted their weapons at Frank, who reacted by swiping his paw at ice warriors in the front, breaking their swords of ice. Frank swiped his paw at them again, but this time he went for the head. The ice warriors weren't quick enough to dodge, and Frank took out a large chunk of their ice flesh after he was done, which was enough damage to keep them down. He then turned to the ice warriors behind him, and did the same thing to them, when they tried to charge.

While Frank dealt with the ice warrior with his bear powers, two ice warriors jumped into the air, and they tried to stab him in the back, while he was occupied with the warriors on the ground, but Nico turned to his left, where the ice warrior that was closest to him was. He sliced off the first one's hand, and then he cut off the ice warrior's head.

He turned to the right, where another one was. He reached out his hand, and he stabbed him in the forehead. He then pulled his sword out, and the ice warrior fell to the ground.

Three more ice warriors jumped into the air and onto Frank's back, where one of them tried to stab Nico, but Nico knocked the sword out of his hands, and then he stabbed him in the right eye. The ice warrior fell off Frank's back, and Nico turned his attention to another one, who was about to sink the tip of his blade into Frank's back. Nico reached forward again, and he stabbed the ice warrior in the mouth. Nico turned to the third one, who swung his sword at him, aiming for his head, but Nico ducked, he thrusted his sword out, and he stabbed him in the heart.

Nico turned his attention back to the front. Another ice warrior leapt into the air, he was holding his sword in reverse grip, and he swung his sword at Nico's throat, but Nico was quick enough to parry the blow with his own ice sword. Nico knocked the sword out of his enemy's hand, and then he swung his sword right through the ice warrior's neck. And then from the corner of his eyes, Nico saw another attack coming in from the side, but this time he saw something different about the ice warrior-he had Nico's Stygian iron sword in his hands. When our heroes stepped out of their airship, and into the underground dungeon, the ice mage took away their weapons, and gave each of them to a separate ice warrior.

_So he's the guy who got my sword! _Nico turned to him, he quickly thrusted his ice sword at him, effectively stabbing in the chest. Nico took his own sword back, and he grabbed onto the ice sword, and pulled it out of the fallen warrior's chest, just as the ice warrior fell off.

Nico threw the ice sword at an ice warrior on the ground, and it went through his eye.

"Frank! Keep an eye out for the other guys who took our stuff!" Nico said.

Frank bit on another ice warrior's sword, breaking it in two. Then he chewed his way through the ice warrior's neck, and his eyes scanned the room for the ice warriors who got their weapons.

His eyes caught the glint of a gladius made of imperial gold, and he ran towards the ice warrior who was holding it.

Lamia opened her mouth, and she brought the tip of the spear to it, right to the point where it touched her fangs. Leo could see some sort of clear liquid dripping from her fangs to the tip.

_Poison! _He realized _I can't let that thing touch me! _

He glanced back to the pile of human bones and he ran to them while Lamia chased behind.

"Come back here!" she yelled. "You can't run from me! Sooner or later you'll have to face your own death!"

Leo ducked behind the bones. "Sooner or later? I think you meant to say never."

His hand grabbed onto a bone-a radius, and it instantly caught on fire. He threw the burning radius at Lamia, who dodged. She slithered towards him again, he picked up another piece of bone, and it was a humerus this time. It caught on fire as well, and he threw it again at Lamia, who ducked. She was getting closer, so Leo picked up a skull, which quickly became a flaming skull in his hands. He threw it at her, but once again, she avoided his attack by dodging.

Leo gritted his teeth. He could see Jason battling the snakes across the room. They were trying to wrap themselves around his legs, but Jason was unravelling them starting from the tip. Leo picked up a ribcage, and the fire spread from his hands to the bones the moment he touched it. He threw it at Lamia, and she ducked, but she wasn't quick enough. A bit of the burning ribcage touched her shoulder and the fire spread there.

"Heh. Gotcha," Leo said.

Lamia didn't reply. She was really close now, and she thrusted the spear at him, aiming for his shoulder, but Leo got into a crouch and managed to avoid the blow. He he grabbed a hand, and he bent all of the skeletal fingers forwards, except for the index finger, so they all curled into the palm.

Leo held the hand by the wrist, his arm reached forward, and he stuck the finger into Lamia's right eye.

"AAAAAAARRRGHH!"

Pain was all Lamia felt for a moment, and then it was followed by rage. She grabbed on to Leo's wrist, which was still holding on to the skeletal hand. She brought it close to her mouth, and she sunk her fangs into his hand, even though it was burning.

"AAAAAAGHH!"

Leo's scream made all of our heroes' eyes widen. Frank and Nico turned to him, and Jason gritted his teeth in anger. First Percy and Annabeth fell into Tartarus, and now Leo was bitten by Lamia. He was tired of all this crap being pulled on them by Gaea.

"You take care of the ice warriors!" Jason shouted. "I'll kill Lamia!"

The anger filled him with adrenaline, and he felt a surge of energy. He picked up the broken sword, and he directed all of his energy into his hand, and at the same time, he thought his hardest about summoning lightning.

Unlike the previous times, a thin blade of white lightning appeared at the blade used to be.

_It's not my best work, _Jason thought. _But it'll have to do._

The snakes hissed at him, and they tried to strike, but Jason slashed their heads off, he then ran towards Lamia, and when he got close, he plunged the lightning blade into her back.

Lamia coughed up blood, and her eyes grew wide when she saw the blade of lightning sticking out from her chest. She turned her head back, and at the same time, Jason pulled the lightning blade out. The last thing Lamia saw was a blur of white before her head fell to the ground and blood gushed out of her neck.

"Leo! Leo! Are you all right?" Jason cried, as Lamia's body collapsed to the ground and he rushed to his friend's side. "Leo...!"

The fire on his hands was out, and Leo's face was contorted in pain. His eyes were vacant, as if he was somewhere else. He didn't even seem to know that Jason was there.

Jason examined Leo's bitten hand, and saw blood streaming out of two holes on his hand. He remembered some of the first aid he learned while he was in Camp Jupiter, before Juno made the switch.

_Gotta prevent the poison from infecting the rest of his body! _He thought. _Gotta cut off the circulation! _

He took off his shirt, and he tied it around Leo\s wrist as tightly as he could. Jason then took Leo into his arms, and tried to carry him.

"Guys we have to leave!" he shouted to Nico and Frank.

"Not so fast," an ancient voice, the same voice from Jason's nightmare said. "You may have killed Lamia, but you're still in my domain. You're still underground, where I control everything, and I'll make sure that you won't get out of here alive. My earth warriors will finish you off."

And lined up against the left wall of the entrance, a group of something that reminded Jason of earth statues opened their glowing golden eyes.

**That's all for now, folks! **


	8. Chapter 8: Heroes vs Monsters

**(Author's Note: Ok, I am so so so…times that by a thousand sorry about this. Chapter 8 was supposed to be out weeks ago…but it kept on getting delayed. I'm really sorry about the schedule slip you guys. I just wanted everything to be up to standards. **

**Enjoy chapter 8.) **

"We'll stop here, but only for five minutes!" Hazel said. "All right, I get it Arion! You're hungry and tired! I'll see if there's any gold in this area of the ocean!"

She was _not_ in a good mood. Athena's refusal to end the curse really frustrated her. After all they did to retrieve the statue and bring it back; the goddess of 'wisdom' still picked petty revenge over saving the world. The curse would cause something bad to happen, like when Leo fired ballistas at the Roman camp when he was possessed by an eidolon. And with the two camps fighting, the Prophecy would never be complete, and then Gaea would return.

Hazel felt like she was on a suicide mission, with no chance of succeeding. But she tried her best to push those thoughts aside, as she concentrated on locating any gold underwater.

_If I'm lucky, there could be sunken treasure in this area, _she thought. _Hopefully, it's not too deep, so it wouldn't cost me too much energy to bring it up._

A few seconds later, she hit something. Hazel got into the chariot with Piper. She closed her eyes, placed her hand in the water, and concentrated on bringing it up.

Piper, who was sitting inside the chariot, was glad they were stopping. Riding in the chariot was like being on a never-ending roller coaster, except for the fact that there were no safety straps, seatbelts, or anything. Sometimes her stomach couldn't take it, and she had to lean forward to puke. Even though it was going to be a short break, she was glad to be rid of the nausea. Piper took out Katoptris, hoping to see something that could be of use for the quest. For a moment she saw a reflection of herself looking rather green, with her hair all messed up, like she had just woken up in the morning and tired, dry eyes.

Her reflection blurred, and then the smudges of colour started to stretch and distort. A few seconds later, it stopped, and the image became clear again. Piper then saw a terrible scene: a very pale looking Jason was carrying Leo, and Piper could see the weariness in his eyes. He looked like standing up was a chore for him, and Piper thought he was going to collapse at any moment. The image panned sideways, and Piper saw Nico riding on a polar bear fighting what she thought was an army of ice warriors, but when she looked closely, she could see what looked like some more people appearing as if they were sculpted out of clay running in, and trying to join the fight.

The image then dissolved, and once again, Piper was staring at her own reflection.

"Hazel, we need to leave, now!" Piper said. "I think…I think the others are in trouble!"

She then told Hazel about the images she saw in her dagger. "….Wish I could help, I mean, you should've seen them. There was an entire army of those…ice warriors, not to mention the incoming earth warriors. And I don't think they have the energy to fight them all…Jason was so tired, he's not going to be able to keep up with all that, and Leo…I don't even know what happened to him, but he seemed to be unconscious."

"But we need Arion to take us back," Hazel said, as she pulled her hand out of the water, and Piper could see that she was holding some gold coins. "And if he's hungry, he can't get us back."

She tossed the coins forward into the air, and Arion caught them in his mouth.

* * *

"Guys, we _really _need to leave!" Jason repeated, keeping his eyes on the earth warriors, who were rushing at him. Just like the ice warriors who resembled animated ice sculptures of people, the earth warriors looked like animated earth sculptures of humans, except for the glowing eyes.

But they weren't the only ones who wanted him dead. The snakes were slithering towards him hissing, and a group of ice warriors noticed the commotion as well, and they ran towards him.

Jason knew he was in trouble. His adrenaline was gone; he had exhausted his energy supply by summoning lightning and wind (back when they were fighting the Stymphalian birds). With so many enemies running after him, and so little energy, not to mention without a weapon, Jason knew that there was no way he could fight, let alone kill all these guys.

"Nico! Frank! A little help?" Jason called.

"Coming!"

Frank quickly ran over to Jason, and he swiped his paw at the ice warriors, which knocked them aside.

"Get on!" Nico shouted.

Jason glanced back, the earth warriors were getting closer, and the snakes were doing the same, although they were slower. He slung Leo over his shoulder with one hand, and Frank bent his legs, which lowered his body, allowing Jason to climb up.

"Now what?" Jason asked. "Leo needs medical attention, I don't have enough energy to fight, and there's a _lot _of Gaea's minions here!"

Nico handed him his gladius. "Here, I got it back for you. But we need to get the other weapons back!"

A few more ice warrior jumped into the air, and one of them thrusted his sword forward, Nico ducked, but he wasn't fast enough, and he got hit in the shoulder. He could see more ice warriors leaping into the air, with their swords pointed at him, but it wasn't just them. The earth warriors caught up to them, and they jumped up into the air as well, with their earth swords out.

Jason glanced around. Enemies were everywhere, but he couldn't fight them. All he could do was watch, as the earth warriors threw their swords at them. The weapons flew threw the air, and at this point, Nico knew they had to leave. Their weapons didn't matter. If they were lost, they were replaceable, but if somebody here died, the Prophecy wouldn't be fulfilled, and Gaea would rise.

Nico closed his eyes, and concentrated on moving the shadows, which wasn't too hard, since they were in an underground dungeon with no sunlight. The shadows on the ground twisted themselves into a circle around our heroes, they rose up from the ground, and they covered our heroes from their feet to their heads in a shadow sphere.

The shadow sphere then became more and more transparent, as if it was becoming a ghost, until it disappeared from the spot. A few seconds later, it re-appeared next to Coach Hedge's frozen body. The sphere opened up, like a flower coming into bloom, and Frank quickly placed his paw on Coach Hedge's legs, and the shadow started to close up, like a flower in reverse-bloom.

Nico then pictured the airship in his mind, and just like the previous time, the shadow sphere became more and more transparent until it disappeared entirely.

* * *

Hazel threw more coins at Arion, who easily caught them in his mouth. The palomino horse quickly gobbled them up, as if he had not eaten for weeks. Hazel placed her hand into the water, and she concentrated on bringing the gold coins up, but this time, she got a nasty surprise.

Instead of coins, she felt something slimy and long touching her hand, and when she pulled it out of the water, she saw that a tentacle had grabbed onto her hand. Before it hand a chance to pull her in, Hazel took out her spatha (cavalry sword), and she sliced the tentacle in two.

There was a splashing sound behind them, and both of them turned around to see the yellow and blue-ringed head of a giant octopus, death glaring (well, that's what they thought it looked like) the two demigods.

"Let's get the hell out of here!" cried Piper. "I don't want to fight this thing, especially not in the water!"

Hazel agreed. A sea battle would not do them any good, since neither of them was a child of Neptune. And if either one was pulled underwater, that would be the end of them. She quickly got onto Arion's back.

"Go! Go!"

The horse didn't need to be told that. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, but the octopus was one persistent monster. He swam through the water, and some of his tentacles were above water, trying to capture our heroes.

Arion increased his speed, and he tried his best to shake the octopus off their trail. Everything around them blurred, and Piper hoped that she wouldn't fall off, as she hanged on.

"Faster, Arion!" urged Hazel. "If you get us out of here, I'll give you all the gold you can eat!"

* * *

The shadow spear began to dissolve, and our heroes could see that once again, they were above ground, and they were right next to the Argo II.

"I don't know if they're following us or not, but I don't wanna fight out!" Nico said.

"Agreed!" Jason said.

Nico and Jason jumped off Frank's back. They quickly walked into the airship, except for Frank who pushed Coach Hedge's frozen statue-like body inside.

Jason wanted to collapse. While he was fighting the Stymphalian birds, he used too much energy in his wind attacks, and when he fought Lamia, he summoned lightning, despite already being low on energy.

But he knew he couldn't do it now. There were much more important matters at hand, like Leo being poisoned, and since he was their captain, he was the one who knew how to pilot the airship. Now that he was out, Jason (being a son of Jupiter) was the only replacement.

He tried to walk to the control room, but he stumbled. Jason forced his legs to move and he used his fingers to force his eyes open, but he moved very slowly, and he knew that time wasn't on his side. If he collapsed before the airship could take off, well…he'd hate to think about what would happen if that happened, and Gaea's minions caught up to them.

"Can someone help me?"

Frank ran over to him, and his body started to change, as the Roman concentrated on transforming into a strong, yet fast rare animal that only lived in zoos. The animal had traits from both of his parents, it loved the water, and was very social, but it was something you would never see in the wild.

Before long, his body started to change. Frank became smaller, his fur changed from white to sandy, and faint brown stripes appeared. His tail grew as well, and he had whiskers now. Frank Zhang had gone from polar bear to liger.

Jason got onto his back, and Frank ran. They shortly reached the cockpit, where Jason stared at the controls. Even though Leo made them complex, Jason could figure it out, he felt right at home on a plane. He pressed a few buttons, and he punched the 'up' command into the Argo II's system, then he yanked the aviation throttle, and a few minutes later, the ship was in the air.

Jason dropped to his knees. Even standing up was a challenge for him. "Leo…go tend to him…," he said. "Don't worry about me.

He felt more tired than ever, as if he had gone without sleep for a week. He seriously just wanted to close his eyes, and before he knew it, his vision faded to black, and he fell to the ground.

* * *

A sharp pain shot up Annabeth's injured leg. At the same time, she felt a lot of weight pulling on it. She glanced down, and realized that it was the spider silk that was dragging her down.

_Arachne…._

"What do you want?" she yelled. "Why the hell are you doing this?"

The spider monster smiled evilly. "As you know, Gaea needs you to be sacrificed to bring her back, and now that you're here, she can safely transport you to Greece, where your blood will be spilled. But I have some special plans for you, Annabeth. And after everything your mother put me through….I can't wait to get started."

She tugged at her spider silk, and Annabeth clenched her teeth in pain. Her leg felt like it was being ripped off. But Arachne only tugged harder and harder.

"I won't let you go," Percy said. "I already told you before. We're staying together. You're not getting away from me."

It was then that Annabeth became teary eyed. "Percy, I…AAAAAGHHH!"

Arachne was tugging at the spider silk, and she was pulling even harder than last time, but Percy's grip on Annabeth tightened as well. And for a while, the two played tug of war, using Annabeth's body as the rope. The pain got worse for her, unlike anything she ever felt.

Her breathing grew sharp, and she was sweating heavily. Arachne continued to pull, but Percy refused to let go. Her body was being pulled in opposite direction, and she felt that at any second, her body would be split in two, and blood and organs would be splattered everywhere.

"You can try your best, but in the end, you'll still fail to save what matters most to you," Arachne said. "And I can prove it to you right now!"

She tugged harder than ever at her spider silk, and she managed to pull down Annabeth's legs. Percy held on to her upper body, trying to pull her up. Annabeth could see that he was using all of his strength, because she could feel the sweat that was appearing on his body. Unfortunately for Annabeth, the pain got worse, right to the point where she nearly passed out from it.

"Percy, please" she begged. "You have to let me go…"

"Wise girl, I already said I'd never let you go," he told her. "And I never go back on my word!"

"How sweet," mocked Arachne. "But those are just empty words. They won't save you now, and they won't save you in Tartarus!"

She started to pull on the spider silk harder than ever. Annabeth screamed from the pain. Percy responded by pulling as well, but this just made her pains worse. Arachne pulled again, this time using all of her strength. Annabeth screamed, and once again, Percy tried to pull her up, but she could feel her body slipping away from his grip.

Arachne continued to pull the spider silk, and Percy also tried to pull her up, and like the spider monster, he also used all of his strength. But that just made him sweatier, which was not helping.

Annabeth didn't how long the torture lasted, but for her it felt like an eternity. She was screaming the entire time. Fortunately for her, it was beginning to end. Both Percy and Annabeth were sweating profusely, causing her to slip from his grip until he was only able to hold her hand; the rest of her body was being pulled in. Annabeth knew that Percy would never be able to pull her back up, no matter how hard he tried.

"Percy…I'll see you…later," she said. "On the other side…in Tartarus."

"No…Annabeth…ANNABETH!"

With one final pull, Annabeth's hand slipped away, and she was pulled in by the power of Arachne's spider silk. She screamed the entire way down, and Percy could hear everything. Eventually they became fainter and fainter, until he couldn't hear anything anymore.

"No!...NO! ANNABETH!" he cried, as he watched the love of his life, the one he would do anything for, even die for if necessary, the one he risked the fate of the world for, the one that he chose over letting go, just so he could protect her disappear into the abyss.

**That's all for now, and by the way, the octopus monster wasn't just a random monster appearing out of nowhere for no reason. You'll see why it attacked Hazel and Piper. **


End file.
